Lower-case russia: Decapitalization, neologisms and mock Russian as wartime resistance in Ukraine
Lower-case russia: Decapitalization, neologisms and mock Russian as wartime resistance in Ukraine

Summary/Abstract: This article traces three wartime speech practices – decapitalization, derogatory neologisms (rusnia, rashyzm), and “Mock Russian” spellings – that Ukrainians deploy to demote the aggressor symbolically. We analyze five sub-corpora totalling ≈ 179.3 million tokens (incl. 2.1 million tweets, ~ 34 M tokens) gathered between February 2022 and December 2024. Lower-case росія/путін overtook canonical spellings within six weeks of the full-scale invasion, while the share of novel slurs in Russia-referencing vocabulary rose from < 5% pre-invasion to ≈ 35–39% by late 2024 (with an early-2022 surge). Mixed-script parodies further recast Russian as linguistically defective. We argue that these graphic and lexical moves function as de-colonial speech acts that renegotiate linguistic hierarchy in real time. The study provides a data-driven model for tracking symbolic power shifts in conflict zones and extends post-colonial sociolinguistics to the Russo-Ukrainian war.

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